The use of backup and restoration strategies for electronic files, such as digital photographs, digital music files and digital documents stored on computer systems, is growing in use. In such strategies, an administrator of a computer system causes electronic files to be stored to various storage devices associated with, or otherwise accessible to, the computer system. Such storage devices may include online storage servers and removable storage media. More specifically, a strategy may involve the design by a user of a backup plan, which may be implemented as an electronic file including a set of user-specified preferences, wherein files may be stored to respective devices depending on particular characteristics of each file. For example, digital photographs may be backed up to an online server that offers a photo printing service, unusually large files may be backed up to a high-capacity online server, and digital music files may be backed up to a removable storage medium that may be directly coupled to the computer system.
In conventional approaches, when implementing a backup plan on a new computer, or when a user wish to alter a currently implemented backup plan, users must go through a lengthy process when creating or restoring a backup plan. For example, file structures must be recreated, which can be a very lengthy process. Additionally, backup strategies implemented by the backup plan must be recalled or recreated, which may be difficult or otherwise inconvenient for a user.